Artists accuse Sandinistas of vendetta against revered poet

Artists and intellectuals have accused Nicaragua's Sandinista government of betraying its revolutionary heritage by waging a vendetta against a revered poet.

Ernesto Cardenal, an 83-year-old cultural figurehead, faces jail after clashing with President Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista leader who was once a darling of the left.

More than 60 Latin American writers and cultural luminaries, including many who used to champion the Sandinistas, denounced the move as illegal and another sign that the revolution had curdled.

In a joint letter they said Cardenal, a former culture minister and Catholic priest who helped popularise the movement in the 1980s, was the most recent victim of systematic persecution in the impoverished Central American country.

"It is being directed against all who raise their voices to protest the lack of transparency, the authoritarian style, the unscrupulous behaviour and the lack of ethics that Daniel Ortega has shown since his return to power."

Last month a Sandinista-appointed judge revived a three-year-old case and fined the poet $1,000 for insulting a German man, Inmanuel Zerger, in a property dispute. The charge had been dismissed in 2005 and there was no explanation for its revival.

Cardenal refused to pay, calling the sentence unjust and illegal, and said he would go to jail if necessary.

There was widespread belief that the prosecution was revenge for the poet's outspoken criticism of Ortega as a "thief" who runs a "monarchy made up of a few families in alliance with the old Somoza interests".

The Sandinistas overthrew the corrupt Somoza dictatorship in 1979, a romantic and exhilarating triumph for leftists and liberals, and as a government fended off US-backed Contra rebels until losing power in a 1990 election.

Ortega bounced back against a divided opposition in 2006, raising hopes that he would tackle poverty and inequality. But the president's alliance with conservative politicians, his support for a total ban on abortion and his intolerance of dissent has alienated many former supporters.

Many in Nicaragua and abroad share the poet's view that the fine was revenge by Ortega, who wields influence over judges. Eduardo Galeano, a Uruguayan historian idolised on the left, said the move was the act of a "deplorable regime".

The Portuguese Nobel laureate, José Saramago, said Ortega's human and political merits appeared to have fallen to zero. "Once more a revolution has been betrayed from within."